The new vice-dean of the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences (DJF) at the University of Aarhus has been found. The 57-year-old Henriette Giese will start in her new job on 1 March 2008. The new vice-dean comes from a position as a professor at the Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Copenhagen.

Henriette Giese will bring a wide range of experience in research, teaching and leadership within the agricultural sector to DJF.

Her education focused on genetics, plant biology and fungal diseases in plants. After her studies, which brought her to England, Germany and the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University in Copenhagen, Henriette Giese was employed as a researcher at Risoe National Laboratory where she worked until 1997. After a four-month stint as a visiting professor at Okayama University in Japan, her career continued with five years as the leader of the Centre for Plant-Microbe Interactions, Danish National Research Foundation. Since 2000 Henriette Giese has been employed as a professor at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University, which merged with the University of Copenhagen 1 January 2007 and became the Faculty of Life Sciences.

The new Faculty of Agricultural Sciences (DJF), University of Aarhus, will be offering Bachelor and Master degrees for the first time this fall. The new vice-dean is well equipped for the novel tasks and challenges that DJF is facing. She is very experienced in developing and building up teaching courses and is looking forward to being part of the team that is designing DJF’s new study programmes.

- It is important to launch the new programmes and courses at DJF with a clear and ambitious profile. The degree courses should differentiate themselves from those offered at other Danish and foreign universities. The students should be able to identify challenging topics and to relate these to their career possibilities, says Henriette Giese.

In her opinion, the education of students and the advisory and applied tasks that DJF carries out must have a strong foundation in basic research.

- Good teaching, policy advice and commercially oriented tasks require solid research skills. So I believe that there should be a greater focus on high quality basic research, she says.

- With the employment of a capacity such as Henriette Giese, DJF is well armed to meet the challenges of tomorrow with an increased focus on research of international quality, education, collaboration with the industry and spread of knowledge. At DJF we look forward to cooperating with Henriette Giese very much, says the faculty dean Just Jensen.

For more information please contact: Professor Henriette Giese, Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Copenhagen, telephone: +45 3533 2638, mobile: +45 3068 1412, e-mail: heg@life.ku.dk

Dekan Just Jensen, Det Jordbrugsvidenskabelige Fakultet, Aarhus Universitet, telefon: 8999 1680, e-mail: Just.Jensen@agrsci.dk

Text: Janne Hansen